


that which is heartless cannot be broken

by indexthisqualisign



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Graphic Description of Corpses, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, Snafu-centric, War is hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 11:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4875238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indexthisqualisign/pseuds/indexthisqualisign
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In between the killing and the digging and the waiting, it is easy to look, to steal a glance amongst all the other things he takes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	that which is heartless cannot be broken

**Author's Note:**

> Somehow graphic descriptions of corpses and filth and violence, just in case that is not your cup of tea. 
> 
> Thanks Eufry for the beta.

 

The smell of dead bodies, the coagulated saliva coating his fingers, the sick, wet sounds of the blade meeting a tooth, a tongue, the inside of a cheek––he has smelt worst, felt worst, heard worst. You do not spend your life in the bad side of the city without witnessing things similar to warfare.

He sees the shining gold inside dead Japs' mouths as an income on the side––his Marines monthly salary and some good old stealing. He does not feel conflicted. He has had more dirt on his hands for money. Done worse to people who were not dead already.

It was almost inevitable that he ended up doing the things he did. He had been poor before the big crash. But the big crash had been a tipping point, a sudden free fall downwards that made him realize he had never truly known what poverty could really be like, never knew the lengths he could go to to survive. Once he had sullied his hands and his soul for money, for food, for shelter, there was no coming back. Once the debtors had received what they wanted, once there was food in his belly, a roof over his head and four walls surrounding it, there was no undoing what had been done. There was no forgetting what had happened.

And he realized, after it has happened once, it can happen twice. And after the third time, it gets easier. Each time, each bruise, each scar, it hurts less––it _means_ less. What is wrong, what is right, it did not matter as much when he was hungry, when he was worried about whether or not he would have to sleep another night under a starless sky. What is wrong, what is right, it started to mean nothing in a world that treated him the way it did.

He recognized early on that he could never afford what gentle folks called decency or morals. He enlisted not because he wanted to fight for freedom or protect the nation, but because he knew that war could bring him a salary and a chance to escape the hellhole that was his life. Perhaps, if he were to survive the war, he would come back with enough money to start all over in a different state and try to live as respectably as he would ever be able to. In any case, as a poor single man with no education, he knew he would have to enroll in the war effort sooner rather than later––the earlier he did so, the more he could take advantage of it.

So while he is perfectly aware he cannot afford idealism or Christian morality, he knows well-off rich new recruits like Sledge can. Sledge, who has a home to go to––a huge house, the kind of house that is painted an untainted white, with more bedrooms than people living in it––and a family worrying about him living inside its walls. Sledge, who had never felt the rage of going to bed hungry for countless nights before, never had to worry about the next struggle tomorrow would bring, never seen atrocities before the war, never had to see the darkest, messiest parts of human nature before he had to sail off for the Pacific.

He hates him at first for that, because no one ever gave _him_ the opportunity of becoming a man before having to act like one. He never got the chance to have people care that he is on the other side of hell trying to make a decent thing out of himself. Never got a real option besides risking his life in a senseless war to ensure his survival. He hates Sledge, hates him so fucking much he can see stars in his vision whenever he closes his eyes. He does not let it show on his face, though––he knows how to smirk anger into vengeance, knows where to push so it breaks and how to hurt, and that is maybe the only thing he has on the boy.

Trouble is, when he closes his eyes now, it is no longer stars he is seeing. Trouble is, now that the boy has seen the worst humans have to offer, he has turned into a man, and men mean trouble. Men, they go to war and their bodies rot on Chinese rocks. Men, they hurt, they kill, they grow desperate and they do not remember what used to be right and what used to be wrong.

He does not know why––maybe he knows _exactly_ why––but he has started to wish it wouldn't happen to Sledge. He does not want to witness the way Sledge’s soul is turning as dirty as his hands, as dark as the bruises under his eyes. He does not want to have to fear seeing Sledge’s body blown South and North and East and West, or to see his chest bleeding red. Is it not absurd that, of all the things in the world, of all the people who exist in it, it is the thought of keeping Sledge sane and alive that keeps him from turning his own gun against himself? Is it not ironic that, after all he has been through and the atrocities he faces every day, the one thing he feels has the power to break him is the death of a privileged boy from Alabama?

In between the killing and the digging and the waiting, it is easy to look, to steal a glance amongst all the other things he takes. If he ever lives to get off of this damned island and all the others that will come after it, he likes to imagine he’s going to walk out with his pockets heavy from Japs’ gold and Sledge’s smiles. In wartime, smiles come and go rarer than gold.

He is not used to interacting with people without trying to manipulate, hurt, intimidate or kill them. Even before he was sent out to the other side of the world with orders to kill as many Japs as he could until death claimed him, he had already forgotten how to relate to another human being. How to live _with_ and _for_ someone. He thinks he should be happy for the changes happening inside of him or more simply for having something else to focus his broken mind on while war rages around him––yet, when he stands guard in their foxhole at night, he can only resent Sledge for making him feel that way. For making him want things he cannot have when he has spent all his life learning how to feel for nothing, to want for nothing and to need for nothing.

He stares into the dark, listening to the sounds of death bursting out randomly around him and the steady, predictable breathing of Sledge next to him, and the night mocks him. It is like the stars, in between the glare of explosions, are spelling out that he is a moron who made the fatal mistake of caring for a boy.

Wait until he dies, they snarl in his head.

Worse, they sneer, wait until the war ends and he will not have to be stuck with you. Wait and see how fast he’ll run in the opposite direction, back to his big house full of Christian crosses and gentle smiles, back to simple summer days and ice tea.

For now, though, he can find comfort in the fact that the war has not stopped. Unlike bodies, it needs no rest and has no heart that can be broken. The war, it will go on as long as there can be more bodies to lay in and on the mudded grounds. The constant supply of fresh corpses makes it easy for him to always go back to his old habits, knife in hand, of cracking bones and finding fortune in death.

After all, aside from his memories and his salary, it is all he will have left if he ever survives this. It is easier to desecrate another dead Jap's corpse than to think about the life he will be coming home to, with no one to live or care for.

**Author's Note:**

> You can come and chat me up on my [tumblr](http://intertextualgaps.tumblr.com/) where I regularly post pictures of Rami Malek and call him my son instead of doing the work I need to do to finish grad school.


End file.
